Waterwheel Generator

The idea of the art piece came from a contestant of STEM Girl Day Glass Shop Imaginary Invention Contest.

According to the invention, a waterwheel is powered by water to charge an electric car. The electrical energy was generated by turning an electric scooter motor through a waterwheel-belt-driven pulley system. The energy storage device consisted of a supercapacitor bank capable of storing a meaningful charge. The 3 phase current from the induction motor was rectified through a series of full bridge rectifiers to convert to DC voltage suitable for charging the supercapacitors. A BIG RED BUTTON was used to momentarily power on the headlight of a 3D printed Chevy.

Openscad was used to generate the pulley teeth geometry.